Gaining Insight Through Spend Analysis: Introducing Source-To-Pay Solutions
Spend Analysis Definition
Companies of all sizes stand to benefit from adopting the latest Softwaresolutions to facilitate their source-to-pay processes. Source-to-Pay solutions allow buyers and suppliers to work together efficiently, reducing costs and streamlining processes. But the most significant benefit delivered by Source-to-Pay software centers on its ability to deliver powerful insights through spend analysis.
With Source-to-Pay solutions, an organizations spend data is aggregated, analyzed and visualized, often within minutes. This data can quickly highlight potential savings opportunities, favorit ism toward certain suppliers or products, or opportunities to buy large bulk orders in shorter time. With single view into spend data, executives have access to the insight they need to make informed decisions and continuously drive value through their source-to-pay processes.
This step-by-step guide will provide executives with an understanding of how to use Source-to-Pay solutions to unlock the insight and value wrapped up in spend analysis.
Step 1: Utilize Spend Warehousing
Before source-to-pay solutions can be used to gain insights from spend analysis, the first obstacle must be overcome gathering and storing the data. As organizations rely on multiple systems to support spend analysis, the first step is to gather data from each system into one place, process known as ?spend warehousing?.
Source-to-Pay solutions automate the spend warehousing process, allowing an organization to quickly and easily collect data from multiple sources into centralized repository. This repository serves as the foundation for more granular classification and analysis, thus providing the analytic foundation for deeper dives into the data.
Step 2: Aggregating the Data
Once the data is stored in centralized repository, the next step is to generate the data-driven insights organizations need to uncover hidden cost savings. Source-to-Pay solutions automate the aggregation process, allowing users to aggregate their spend data in few clicks.
By leveraging the latest data science technology, Source-to-Pay solutions offer the ability to quickly and accurately visualize the data, often in minutes. This quick turnaround allows executives to rapidly unlock insights and identify opportunities to save money and improve efficiency.
Step 3: Leverage Advanced Analytics
Once the data is aggregated, the next step is to leverage advanced analytics to identify cost savings opportunities. Source-to-Pay solutions offer advanced analytic tools such as predictive analytics, sentiment analysis and natural language processing to help executives gain new insights into their spend data.
Predictive analytics, for example, allows executives to anticipate future events, helping them identify potential problematic payments and issues with suppliers. Sentiment analysis further enhances the level of insight by providing executives with deep understanding of consumer preference, allowing them to inform marketing decisions.
Step 4: Leverage Automated Tools
The final step in the process is to leverage automated tools to ensure accurate and timely payments. Source-to-Pay solutions offer automated payment solutions such as electronic payments, scheduled payments, and budgetary check and approvals all designed to optimize payment timeliness and accuracy.
These automated processes also allow executives to set up payment rules, improving efficiency and eliminating the need for manual intervention. This reduces the risk of late payments, costly processing errors and errors resulting from manual data entry.
Conclusion
Gaining insight from spend analysis is critical step in understanding the performance of an organizations spend management processes. Source-to-Pay solutions allow executives to quickly and easily gain this insight, driving value through the most impactful decision-making.
By leveraging the four step approach described in this guide spend warehousing, aggregation, advanced analytics and automated tools executives can take full advantage of Source-to-Pay solutions and unlock an array of insight-driven decisions that drive success and performance.
